Fidelity National Financial Inc. announced Wednesday that it's acquiring Sanchez Computer Associates Inc., a provider of banking systems and outsourcing services for 400 financial institutions in 22 countries. Sanchez' core product, Profile, is a real-time banking-deposit and loan-processing system. The company has migrated Profile to the Linux operating system, making it one of the first banking systems to run on the open-source platform.

Fidelity National, which had revenue of $7.7 billion and earnings of $860 million last year, is the nation's largest title-insurance company. Last year, it acquired the financial-services division of Alltel Information Services, including mortgage loan servicing and the retail, commercial-lending, and wholesale banking systems; the mortgage system processes half of all U.S. residential mortgages.

The latest round of consolidation in the banking industry, led by the mergers of Bank of America-FleetBoston and J.P. Morgan Chase-Bank One, is causing banks to re-evaluate their technology infrastructures with an eye toward replacing obsolete technology. The Linux-based Profile system is more advanced technologically than the older, mainframe-based Alltel system, Barry says, enabling Fidelity to better compete against the likes of Aurum Technology, Fiserv, Metavante, and Jack Henry & Associates for banking systems and outsourcing services.